


Who Dare Disturb the Universe?

by HaveALolli



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaveALolli/pseuds/HaveALolli
Summary: Aelin wakes up in a rose garden. Even if she hadn't been being tortured by Maeve for months on end, she probably still would have considered this an odd occurrence. Not that she's complaining. But whose house is that on the horizon?(Kingdom of Ash will destroy us all.)





	Who Dare Disturb the Universe?

It was really a very nice garden. The grass was well-kept, the plants looked to be thoroughly weeded and regularly watered. She was lying on her back in the grass, roses of varying colors and sizes growing up around her. The sky overhead was a rich blue, interrupted occasionally by fluffy white clouds. But, as Aelin Ashryver Galathynius stared up at the pink and red and white flowers and at the sky beyond, she thought rather sourly about them.

Because she was surely dreaming, and she hated dreaming. It wasn’t because she had nightmares about demons and whips and everyone she loved being ripped apart, although those certainly came almost every night. They often chased her from the few hours of sleep she was permitted—if she was permitted any at all—but she’d grown accustomed to the nightmares. No, it was the pleasant dreams she really hated. It was having to wake up and realize that she was still sealed away in iron and darkness and despair, and to have the crushing weight of reality seep back into her splintered bones. 

Nightmares were only dreams.

This—the kind of illusion where it wouldn’t seem outlandish for a unicorn to come prancing toward her—this was nothing  _ but _ a dream.

At least she wasn’t screaming anymore. In fact, her throat felt as good as new. As did the rest of her. Aelin shifted her index finger, and felt nothing. She twitched her middle finger and found similar results, and soon realized that she move every muscle in her body without an ounce of pain. It was almost as if… 

As if her body was not some broken thing, already lying in a coffin but still begging for death.

She sat up, slowly. A warm breeze rustled the leaves and stems around her, and she breathed in the floral scent of the garden. She may hate good dreams, but she wasn’t stupid enough to not enjoy them. She cautiously tried her weight on one foot, and found it to hold, and then tested the other foot. Eventually, slightly foreign to the feeling of sturdy, reliable body parts, she was standing.

In a rose garden. Stark naked. 

Gods, the sun on her body felt amazing. She spread her arms and tilted her face to the sky. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be… well, anywhere. For so long, her location had been irrelevant. Let alone to be able to see the sky and smell the flowers and feel the sun on her back. It was marvelous.

Swivelling an unbroken neck and shifting her intact legs a bit gave her a complete view of her surroundings, which turned out to be little more than a nice meadow with a house a little ways away. A large house, granted. Very large. Calling it a house probably didn’t do it justice. Mansion seemed too stuffy. Perhaps more of an estate? It seemed inviting enough. More of the roses were planted around the outside. It had large windows, and excellent craftsmanship.

How boring.

Couldn’t her mind come up with something more interesting for her to explore? What about a jungle, or different realm entirely. 

Why couldn’t she dream of Rowan again? 

Aelin frowned at the thought of her mate. She couldn’t quite get her mind around him anymore. Whenever she tried to remember him, the edges of the memory would blur and twist, and a pleasant memory would somehow turn bitter. She was pretty sure he was her mate. They were definitely married. Probably married. Possibly married? Or was that the other man? The brown-haired one, with the eagle… 

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Thinking nearly always gave her headaches now. It was better to deal in the present than in the past or the future. The present was all she could control. 

It wasn’t that she was having a particularly bad time, standing in the flower garden. It was nice enough. She just had a feeling that something was waiting for her inside the estate—she felt a tug, urging her to move. She didn’t want to defy the tug. Sometimes if she tried to control her dreams too much she ended up awaking before she actually wanted to.

Not that she ever really wanted to wake up anymore.

She barely felt the prick of the rose thorns as she started toward the estate.

 

* * *

 

It took her no longer than ten minutes to walk through the garden and up the path, right to the front door of the place. It was a big, wooden thing, somehow imposing and inviatory at the same time. As she reached up and banged the knocker three times, she was suddenly hit with how much the door reminded her of the Keep’s door; of Arobynn’s door.

She was almost hoping this would turn into a sour dream. She began to wish that Arobynn would open the door and she’d have to sit through Sam being tortured again, if only she could wake up know that it was over.

But it was not Arobynn that answered the door. Instead, it was a lovely looking woman with golden-brown hair and blueish eyes. Her hair was pinned and curled, her light pink dress of finest quality, and even the features of her face seemed crafted to paragon.

The woman’s eyes widened as she beheld Aelin—naked, and covered in thin trains of blood from the roses. Her mouth opened, then closed. Opened, then closed. Finally, she opened the door a bit wider and gestured for her to come in.

“My blood doesn’t wash out,” warned Aelin, eyeing the plush blue rugs in the entryway. Then she added, more to herself, “Learned that the hard way.”

The woman seemed a little confused, and even flustered, as she said, “I should think myself a horrible person if a bloody woman shows up at my doorstep and I hesitate to let her in because of the carpeting.”

Aelin only shrugged, and stepped inside. 

There was a sweeping staircase that looked like wings, and a chandelier that reminded of her stars. Potted plants and intricate wooden furniture. The whole place felt somehow purer than the paradise that was outside, seeming almost celestial with everything being colored white or cream. It was all very lavish, but the most eye-catching addition was the art. Which was  _ everywhere _ .

Nearly every empty space was either carved or had a painting hanging from it. She looked closer at a painting of a smiling man—male, if his pointed ears were any indication.

“Why’d they give him purple eyes? The artist, I mean,” asked Aelin half-heartedly. She was very disappointed in her imagination, if the best it could come up with was a house, nice as it was.

The woman blinked. Once. Twice. Then said, “I imagine because his eyes are violet.”

Aelin threw her a look. “Nobody’s eyes are purple.”

She was silent for a beat, glancing about the room somewhat helplessly. “If you would stay here, I’ll return in just a moment.” The woman took a dainty step towards the right hallway.

“Could you bring back some wine when you do?”

“Y-you want… wine?”

“Red, if you’d be so kind.” The woman nodded awkwardly and hurried away down the long hallway.

If her mind couldn’t have supplied her with a very interesting dream, the least it could do was get her nice and drunk. Maybe then she could properly remember Rowan.

If she were really smart, she’d get whatever artist had made this purple-eyed male to paint her mate. But she quickly dismissed that idea. Odds were she’d just end up with a Rowan with violet eyes. Aelin snorted, and brought a bloodied hand up to trace some of the intricate engravings on the wall next to the portrait. The whorls and swirls were mesmerizing. Her finger left a dramatic red line of blood in its wake.

She didn’t know how long she stood there and traced the pattern on the wall, but by the time a male voice sounded from behind her the pattern was largely discernable from across the room.

“I’ll have to insist you stop that.”

Aelin hummed a vague response, but only stilled her finger when she heard light footsteps approach her, and halt not far behind.

“Are you the wine-bringer?” she whispered, turning to find the man from the painting standing a few feet away, his face unreadable. And an eerie darkness leaking from him, pooling on the floor. Massive wings were tucked behind him, snuffing out even more light. And his eyes—they were, indeed, violet.

There were people behind him, but… but she couldn’t focus on anything but him… on that darkness and ethereality to the perfect man in front of her.

Aelin hissed and shrank back against the wall. Most of her memories were twisted and warped, and recalling them was something akin to trying catch smoke, but some of them were still intact. The most prominent being that of the Valg, the demons. The ones who had ripped into her heart and soul and gutted her. With those perfect faces and the off-ness always about them. Visions flashed through her mind, of being dragged back through her own sorrow, of fighting those evil creatures.

She would not let him hurt her. She wouldn’t let him lay one finger on her. Not like before. Never, never, never again.

Her cheeks were wet, her magic sizzling in her veins.

This was an awful dream, after all. And this was truly the worst kind, wasn’t it? The kind that started off with roses and sunshine and ended up with demons and tears. Worse than nightmares, and worse than good dreams.

She could almost feel her bones shattering again, her throat raw and bleeding from all the screaming. Her skin peeling away from her bones, the tattoos her mate had so carefully inscribed on her flesh being torn away with every crack of the whip.

Her magic seized, and flames danced along her fingertips and onto the floor.

The demon had black smoke whirling towards her, and her shot out flames to stop it from reaching her.

Never, never, never again.

“ _ Don’t touch me, _ ” she snarled at it.

Her flames encased her, and she sent a wall of blue fire toward him.

_ Neverneverneveragain. _

Aelin didn’t want to wake up, but she didn’t want to be asleep anymore.

She just wanted to die.

And then there was nothing but darkness.

  
  



End file.
